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What is the ESL Open League?

The ESL Open League is open to each and every team. All you need to participate is to sign up and play. Get your competitive career started and build up a reputation for your team through a season consisting of group stages and playoffs. The best teams from our ESL Open League will make it into the ESL Major League at the end of the season.

Current Season

Frequently Asked Questions

Dates

Check-In: Please remember to check in into the ESL Open League so we know that you still want to play. Check-In starts at Friday, 04 Jan 2019 12:00 CET.

Late Sign-Up: Missed the signup but still want to participate? Late Sign-Up starts at Sunday, 06 Jan 2019 12:00 CET.

Sign-Up End: We will close signup at Tuesday, 08 Jan 2019 12:00 CET to prepare the league and seed all teams. After that, it's not possible to join the Winter Season of ESL Open League anymore.

Start Date: The ESL Open League starts at Wednesday, 09 Jan 2019. From then on you have one week to schedule your first match. The first default matchdate will be Tuesday, 15 Jan 2019 20:00 CET.

Planned schedule

Groupstage - Matchday #1: 15th Jan 2019 20:00 CET

Groupstage - Matchday #2: 22nd Jan 2019 20:00 CET

Groupstage - Matchday #3: 29th Jan 2019 20:00 CET

Groupstage - Matchday #4: 05th Feb 2019 20:00 CET

Groupstage - Matchday #5: 12th Feb 2019 20:00 CET

Playoffs - Round of 128: 26th Feb 2019 20:00 CET

Playoffs - Round of 64: 05th Mar 2019 20:00 CET

Playoffs - Round of 32: 12th Mar 2019 20:00 CET

Playoffs - Round of 16: 19th Mar 2019 20:00 CEST

Playoffs - Quarter Finals: 26th Mar 2019 20:00 CES

Playoffs - Semi Finals: 02nd Apr 2019 20:00 CEST

Playoffs - Grand Finals: 09th Apr 2019 20:00 CEST

Eligibility

Teams that are part of the ESEA Intermediate or above leagues can't participate anymore in the ESL Open League.

Groupsystem
All participants will be split up into groups of 6, so we will have 5 matchdays for the complete season and playoffs after that. We try to seed the groups country-wise, so communication with your opponent is easier. The best 4 teams of each group advance to the playoffs.

Ranking is determined by points, score difference and if necessary direct comparison.

Matchdays
There will be one match per week. We are fine, if you and your opponent find a date on your own, where it fits best. However, we will have a default matchday, where the match has to be played at last. This will be a Tuesday evening.

ESL AnticheatESL Anticheat is required for all matches in the ESL Open League. ESL Anticheat supports Windows 7, 8.1 & 10 in 32 and 64 bit. If you are using Windows 8, you can upgrade to 8.1 for free.
Playing without ESL Anticheat will result in a default loss.

Servers
ESL provides 128 tick high quality servers to play on. It's allowed to play on another server if one party wishes to do so (e.g. due to ping problems). If you do not want to play on the ESL server, you need to have your own server. If both players/teams should have a 128 tick server available, the match is going to be split over two servers. The server of the player/team which is on the left side in the match sheet will be used for the first half of the match. The other server for the second half of the match.

Matchmedia
Please remember to record your POV demo for each map.

Support
If you have any questions about ESL Open League, don't hesitate to ask us and open a support ticket.